We know a singularity is not unique in the cosmos, but it is clearly unique to this world. We have no event horizon to compare, therefore no directions or exit strategy exist to fix it. Or even try. In our existence – for all practical purposes, it is one of a kind. And because we truly believe history repeats itself*, it becomes an accelerated waiting game. Momentum is building faster than we imagined and like momentum it simply goes on until the end. Imploding. A black hole. Ask a physicist all about it. But chaos has begun, in my eyes, to ensue.

The world is panicking. If you describe it in terms of “hotspots”, we have created a new circle of hell. If you are a firefighter, we are engaged in a global inferno and if you are an American you are becoming more and more afraid. I think it’s an understandable reaction. As we have established America as the place on the planet from whence all things come – good and bad (and might I add, in error). We are ill-equipped for the bad part. American pride has been worn as a badge for 240 years. And just as we exported ourselves as champions of freedom, justice and the American way – we have also exported bad habits, excess, precedents that should never have been, propaganda, and just about everything we could to inculcate ourselves into the collectives minds of the world. It seems to me that we did not export any brains, morality or genuine goodwill, because all we thought we sent was all we thought was important. The lapses in judgment of our history are far too serious to ignore; but ignore them we do.

We have a world in which flags stay at half mast – as if with electronic media one needs a reminder. And electronic media surely bears some of the blame; lots of the blame. It is not better to know it all , all the time. Perhaps millennials believe they can handle it but I think it’s bravado. They can’t imagine they can’t. The app genius that created instant access to every damn thing did not have the time to experience or posit all the ramifications. If there is a world left; we will soon not have to ever think for ourselves. Every sci-fi scenario you have read will be an app. And this can be a game of sorts – a sad game – add your comment to the list of

Some things one will not have to learn:

How to drive and park a car.

How to actually search for information w/o

the Smartphone (where the only thing that is smart IS the phone)

How to start a coup.

Methods of mass murder

All the words to all the songs

Having an opinion

Directions

How to humiliate, shame and possibly drive to suicide, a peer.

How to lie effectively (excellent news for hatchling politicians)

How to hate.

The new kids will never have to worry about keeping a secret. The gender of their baby. Which politician is being indicted. Time to learn knowledge that forms human experience. Because when you live “in the moment” – it starts to become the tunnel of life. They will have things that do things for them. And because the ones who came before will reach their out of code date and soon expire; there won’t even be a memory to be had. But there will be an app for that.

Life on Mars. Elon – stifle yourself. Read Mary Roach. Ask an astronaut. It sounds like a fun idea – but I wouldn’t count on that. And if we fuck up this planet – how dare we start on another?

Peace is a construct – we have never had it. We are a bellicose species. We LIKE blood and death. If we didn’t we would try very hard not to do it. We are trying it with “companion animals”, trials on humans will not happen soon.

Money is the root of all evil. But it has been upgraded to a revenue stream – like the Granta or the Charles or the Seine. If you accept greed as a virtue there will always haves and have nots.

BIGOTS. Like cockroaches, they may inherit the remains. Racial hatred is alive and well and online. Quick fixes have not worked for centuries and those who may be able think outside the box will likely try to find an app to fix it soon. It may not be Jews or Black people – but it will still exist.

Do you worry about your online info? I hear so many folks who won’t do somethings, yet offer their info up for others. Get a clue – THEY know. The way you blithely microchip your pet will one day be the way you do the same to your baby. I am surprised it isn’t done to convicts in the privately owned, for profit, prisons today. Or dementia sufferers. Your naughty pix online? If you did it and posted it – it is always there. Yup Kim Kardashian’s ass and twat will forever appear in two shakes of a nano. Oh Aldous, George, Arthur how did you know? (Were they a warning or how-to guides?).

And in closing – The Almighty? Those who choose “yes” should stop praying and start being very angry. The Deity appears to prefer hate and bloodlust very well and is hypocrite. For others. Is it, as alien astronaut theorists suggest, them? If so, then it is clearly evident that whoever did it, is disgusted. Is it simply the cosmos, as Carl Sagan insisted, then it is completely strange to seem to be a one-off in the universe. All votes are not in. But the Giant Fan of Life on Earth is definitely being hit. Will anyone see this and turn it off?

*History seems to be repetitive but it does not set any examples we absorb. Therefore it is an exercise in futility whose course cannot be changed. So we don’t bother.

It is an event that struck not just at Paris, but at the hearts and minds of reasonable humans worldwide. We are all Charlie. And we should always be Charlie from this moment on because we do not seem to get it without vicious attacks like this one to remind us that we are not safe in our only home. This is the only place we can be. There is no default planet to escape to and set up life right now. And probably won’t be in any reasonable future. This is it and we are threatened – on every front. We have raped and destroyed this planet. Assaulted her and used her and do not yet seem to know we cannot just toss her away. And this is bad enough to imagine – but the events in Paris are yet another reminder that we are engaged in a conflict that is a clear and present danger – to anyone who is not in line with the agenda of terror. Why does this shock and stun us every time an attack occurs. It shouldn’t.

War is a condition of mankind. Peace on Earth is a construct and an individual desire because it has NEVER been part of history. In recorded history there has never been peace on earth. Perhaps peace for a while in some places – but the planet has been in constant turmoil since history has been recorded. As a species we like to rape, pillage, murder, enslave and terrorize others. The scriptures of almost every faith on this world are dripping in blood – perhaps Buddhism is an exception – but it too came to be in bloody times as well. Did we crucify, toss to the lions, smite, riot, plague and burn at the stake every chance we got??? We sure did! About all that changed was the effectiveness of the means.There are few tribes or clans or peoples that have not fought back against something. And usually with violence.

So why did Paris stun us to the core? Because this is what it takes to keep us awake. Lost lives and bloodshed. And because there are some places in our hearts and mind that seem sacrosanct. Paris is one. And the invasive attack on Charlie Hebdo was up close and personal. It told all of us that we could be in our work, our homes, our daily lives, in the City of Light suddenly into darkness and we could BE Charlie. Multiply each lost soul by billions and we are all Charlie – going about our daily business, at the water cooler or lunch or in the park. This is the world we live in today. Not much different than any other world except we are in the here and now. We did not see people burned at the stake or heads rolled in Mayan bowling games – we see this now as hearsay in books. Today, people are lashed in public for ideas that are not “acceptable” to the some and therefore must be punished as a warning to the many. But bowling games or caning – where is the difference?

France warns the French Jews in particular – but they might also warn the French Muslims who do not support terror as well. They might point out that cathedrals and chapels are also at risk. They are all Charlie too. This carnage in no way diminishes the carnage already visited upon the 21st century in its short life, but we should reflect long and hard on what it does accentuate. We are a planet of monsters and a species who carry this dark capability all the time. The very good are rare and precious. The Nobel Peace Prize is treasured because those to whom it is given are rare and precious. Hitler was not an anomaly – he was just single-minded and in a better position to plot his course. And the media was better. And now the media is the messenger in an instant of all that is wrong and whatever is right. They do not achieve parity. Mumbai was a siege that last for days not even 10 years ago. As we coast between slaughters expecting peace to give us a chance. Imagine.

What I think and don’t say is that – but now I will – is – in the long history of my own faith – and until the 1900’s – despite ongoing plans for annihilation – my tribe did not do this. Current history may be a charged debate by those pro-and con Israel – but that is not the issue – the issue is that my tribe did not rain terror as recourse or payback or spite in more cases of threat and murder than recorded consistently on this planet. If the Christian prophet advised turning the other cheek – we epitomized doing it. Perhaps the hideous lesson in this is to understand how people are punished for what and who they are and think and how terrifying living under those circumstances has been for millennia. And how some face it honorably and others murder instead. I would suggest that people of any faith – not just mine, be careful . This may just be the terror that all the previous terror in history has begotten.